


Mirror

by dinosaurdragon



Series: Missing Moments from TWotS [5]
Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Daylen Hates Flemeth (Briefly Mentioned), F/M, Gift Giving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-30
Updated: 2016-07-30
Packaged: 2018-07-27 15:27:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7624036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dinosaurdragon/pseuds/dinosaurdragon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daylen has a gift for Morrigan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mirror

**Author's Note:**

> couldn't finish a chapter this week, please take this with my apologies. it's kind of late, given that the origins part of twots has been over for ages, but who gives a fuck.
> 
> mild edit: somewhat obvious from the context upon reading, but i still should've said this earlier. 'mirror' takes place just after the wardens have left orzammar.

Daylen had bought the mirror on impulse. It was beautiful, gold, and exactly the sort of thing he hoped Morrigan would like. She’d enjoyed the necklaces he’d picked up. Perhaps she’d enjoy this, too… After all, she’d told him of the mirror her mother had smashed. Perhaps this could be a replacement.

“Morrigan,” he said, pulling the mirror from his pack. “Here.”

She blinked at him, taking the object in hand. “What have you here? A mirror?”

“Yeah,” he answered. He watched as she looked it over, examining every detail the way she did with everything. Even him. The moment she recognized it, the very second that she realized this was more than _just_ a mirror, he noticed.

“Oh my. This mirror… it looks just like the one my mother destroyed so very long ago.” Her eyes snapped back up to his, and from their narrowed state, Daylen could easily read her suspicion. “Why do you give this to me?” she asked. “What do you wish in return?”

Ah, but there was the catch. He did, in fact, want something—but what he wanted was not material at all. He found himself desirous of her affection. Her love, if she were capable of such a thing. But what would she say if she heard those words? He did not know. He couldn’t just—just _tell_ her. Neria would laugh if she heard his next words, he knew, but luckily the elf was busy wooing Leliana, and had no attention to spare for her old friend. “Nothing,” he said to Morrigan, smiling his best smile.

“But it cannot be nothing,” she protested, still giving him that suspicious look. “No one gives such a thing for nothing in return. What exchange are you seeking?”

“It’s a gift,” he insisted. He felt the now-familiar frustration push at his control. He wanted to shout at someone—her mother, perhaps, for pressing such a lesson so deep in her mind. Gifts were so foreign a concept to her, and they need not be. “For a beautiful woman.”

She froze like a frightened animal, eyes flying wide and hands gripping the mirror so tight that her already-pale skin seemed to turn white as snow. He began to think no one had ever called her beautiful. She was, though. She was so, _so_ very beautiful, sometimes he could not believe that she truly existed. Surely she was just an illusion created by a demon of desire!

Suddenly, she laughed. “Beautiful?” she asked. “No one has accused me of that before.”

“It is true, though,” he said. “You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.”

“Now I know you are lying.”

“I am not.”

“Oh?” She raised an eyebrow. “I doubt our companions would agree with you. They would say the Cousland girl is more beautiful than I, surely.”

He shrugged. “Perhaps. And, certainly, she is beautiful, but you are far more so to me.”

Silence fell between them Morrigan stared him down, likely testing him, as if he might take back his words if she only waited long enough. But when no apology was forthcoming, when Daylen simply held his ground, staring right back at her, she dropped her gaze to the mirror with a blush.

“I see,” she murmured. She cleared her throat and met his eyes once again. “I have never received a gift before. So… Thank you, Daylen.”

“It was my pleasure.” She smiled at him, a tentative one so unlike her customary smirk. It made her only more beautiful in his eyes, and he was so enraptured by it that he nearly forgot to return it.

That night, for the first time since the Deep Roads, he dreamt not of darkspawn, but of Morrigan and her smile. It was, perhaps, the most precious gift he’d ever received—and she was not even aware she’d given it.


End file.
